Pakistan: Sindh Action Committee vows to launch 'court arrest' movement against land-grabbing

Sindh [Pakistan], June 22 : The leaders of the Sindh Action Committee (SAC) have warned of launching a 'court arrest' movement and a siege to the Sindh Assembly in Pakistan in the next stage of protest against 'illegal' occupation of lands by the Bahria Town Karachi (BTK) and the arrests of activists in the wake of the June 6 violent protest.
According to Dawn, the warning came at the culmination of a march from Gaghar Phatak to Thatta Press Club organised by the SAC on Sunday as part of its mass contact campaign to mobilise people for the next stage of the protest movement against the BTK.
At the gathering, the committee head Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah said that he wanted to assure people that he and his colleagues would never allow the occupation of Sindh's lands at any cost.
Calling the BTK a 'deep-rooted conspiracy against the people of Sindh, he said that the mobilisation campaign against land-grabbing would continue in all four districts of the Laar region till June 23.
Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party chairman Dr Qadir Magsi said that their massive gathering in Sindh's Thatta had proved that the movement was going to create history and force corrupt rulers and their cronies to undo their anti-Sindh actions.
Jeay Sindh Mahaz chairman Riaz Chandio said that Sindh's people were well aware of the conspiracy being hatched against their motherland by a corrupt coterie of the provincial government and they would not let their ulterior motives succeed.
He claimed that Sindh United Party's (SUP) Syed Zain Shah had surrendered to police under a strategy decided by the SAC and that his arrest would be followed by "all of us as part of court arrest movement".
Earlier, the World Sindhi Congress (WSC) has strongly condemned the ongoing brutal operation against the indigenous rights movement of Sindhi people against the Bahria Town Karachi (BTK) and other land-grabbing movements by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led Sindh provincial government in Pakistan.
In a statement, the WSC said that hundreds of Sindhi people have been arbitrarily arrested across the entire Sindh in the last few days. These include political leaders and workers, civil society activists, human rights defenders, intellectuals, writers, poets and displaced indigenous people.
"WSC pledges to raise these gross human rights violations with the International Community, including the UN, human rights organizations, and governments worldwide," it added.
Under a conspiracy from Karachi to Kashmore, Bahria Town, DHA City and other mega projects have been initiated on converting the Sindhi people to a minority in the name of Pakistan.
On June 6, a protest in BTK against land grabbing turned violent as fast food franchises, several vehicles, a showroom and two offices of estate agents were set ablaze and police resorted to teargas shelling and firing rubber bullets.
The violent incident happened on Sunday after a mob forced its way through the main gate during a protest by the SAC against a mega housing project. Thousands of people had arrived at the housing project from different parts of the province to stage a peaceful protest against 'land grabbing', 'forced eviction of locals' and 'demolition of villages' in the name of development, reported Dawn.